Former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern and Clarke Gayford’s daughter appears to have picked up some “American twang” in her voice while living in the United States.
Neve Ardern Gayford has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, since 2023, having moved with her parents following her mother’s resignation from the prime ministership in January that year.
Neve had turned 7 years old on June 21, and the odd number meant it was Gayford’s third chance to create something memorable for his daughter.
On Neve’s birthday each year, Ardern and Gayford split the workload and alternate at creating their own cakes, often quietly competing with each other for the best creation.
Gayford, 48, created a Jellycat Diner cake for Neve this year, telling followers it hadn’t cost him much, “except for my pride”.
Jellycat Diner - created by British toy company Jellycat - is a plush toy and pretend dining experience for children currently only available at New York City’s FAO Shwarz store.
Customers can purchase food-themed “amuseables” from a retro-themed kitchen that prepares and wraps them like a takeaway meal.
“If you haven’t had Jellycat Diner enter your world and lexicon yet, oh, what a treat you’re in for,” Gayford said.
“It’s the most ridiculous, overblown, overpriced little craze going for the moment.”
Gayford presented the cake - an edible Jellycat logo fused to a circular, hollow Ghirardelli chocolate bowl - with a hammer that revealed the sweet treats hiding inside.
“That’s great, I love it. How do you do that?” Neve said with Northeast-accented excitement.
Gayford’s latest creation for Neve received a flood of compliments and praise from his followers online.
“You’re a magnificent team. Well done Clarke. I think I detect a little American accent on Neve,” one person wrote on the post.
“I can’t BELIEVE she’s 7!!! I met her mum when she was in her belly (I’m a public servant),” another commented.
“I heard an American twang!” said a third.
Having made some “fatal errors” in previous years, Gayford said he’d set himself an “impossible standard” by making a TV-themed cake for Neve’s third birthday.
Neve’s fifth birthday cake mimicked a “rainbow caterpillar”, although Gayford was told off “because a rainbow caterpillar has 10 colours not seven“.
“Nonetheless job done for another year and we welcome having a 5-year-old in our house,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ardern has had four opportunities to impress Neve, having whipped up a bunny rabbit cake on her first birthday while she was PM.
In 2020, Ardern revealed she’d made a piano cake from the Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book for Neve’s second birthday, although she noted her final product had “structural stability” issues and was being propped up by a jar of lentils.
And two years later, Ardern returned to the Women’s Weekly cake book to create the ladybug cake featuring on its cover.
“This year was my turn on the birthday cake (or what I’ve come to know as the ‘stress bomb’),” she wrote at the time, adding that several faults had to be covered up by “A LOT of icing”.
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